Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Institute of Ethnography and Folklore
- Code
- BMA-NEPD17-101
- Title
- Comparative folkloristic studies
- Usual semester
- Autumn
- Published semester
- 2026/27/1
- ECTS
- 3
- Language
- hu
- Learning outcomes
- The aim of the course is to provide a comprehensive overview of the historical and contemporary approaches to the comparative study of folklore. Students become familiar with the international methodological traditions of folkloristics, from the nineteenth-century historic-geographic schools to the formalist, structuralist, functionalist, and contextual approaches of the twentieth century. Special emphasis is placed on twenty-first-century comparative directions, including research that explores global, digital, and intercultural networks of folklore.
- Course content
- Main themes and issues The subject, aims, methods, and historical background of comparative folkloristics. Nineteenth-century folklore research and diffusionist schools. The historic-geographic method and the Finnish school (Aarne, Krohn, Thompson). Motif research and typology: catalogues and databases of folklore. Formalist and structuralist folkloristics: Propp, Lévi-Strauss, Greimas. Functionalism and the anthropological perspective in folklore studies. The contextual turn: folklore as a communicative practice (Bauman, Dégh, Oring). Critiques of comparative folkloristics: eurocentrism, orientalism, postcolonial perspectives. The global migration of folklore: motifs, types, and cultural transfers. Digital folkloristics and new tools of comparative research. The role of network analysis and data visualization in folklore studies. The place of Hungarian folkloristics in the history of international scholarship. Intercultural case studies: Central and Eastern European and global examples. Summary: future directions of comparative folkloristics.
- Assessment method
- Written and oral exam.
- Bibliography
- BORSOS Balázs 2006 Az európai néprajzi atlaszok számítógépes feldolgozásának lehetőségeiről. In Hoppál Mihály–Vargyas Gábor (szerk.): Ethno-lore XXIII. Budapest: MTA BTK Néprajztudományi Intézet, 75–109. 2013 A kérdőívtől a clusteranalízisig. A második olvasat. Ethnographia CXXIV(3): 364–376. ILYEFALVI Emese 2017a Textualizációs eljárások, tipológiai kísérletek, digitális adatbázisok: Az összehasonlító szövegfolklorisztikai kutatások jövője a ráolvasások tükrében. Ethnographia 128:3 pp. 383–415. 2017b. Digitális szövegfolklór-adatbázisok és a számítógépes folklorisztika elméleti, módszertani és technikai kérdései. Replika: 145–191. 2011 A magyar népi kultúra regionális struktúrája a Magyar Néprajzi Atlasz számítógépes feldolgozása fényében I–II. Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutatóintézete. FROG, E.2013 Revisiting the Historical-Geographic Method(s). RMN Newsletter. Special Issue: Limited Sources, Boundless Possibilities Textual Scholarship and the Challenges of Oral and Written Texts 7: 18–34. 2016 “Genres, Genres Everywhere, but Who Knows What to Think?” Toward a Semiotic Model. In Koski, Kaarina–Frog, E.–Savolainen, Ulla (eds): Genre –Text –Interpretation. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and Beyond. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 47–88. HONKO, Lauri 1986 Types of Comparison and Forms of Variation. Journal of Folklore Research. Special Double Issue: The Comparative Method in Folklore. 23(2–3): 105–124. 2000b Thick Corpus, Organic Variation: an Introduction. In Honko, Lauri (ed.):Thick Corpus, Organic Variation and Textuality in Oral Tradition. (Studia Fennica Folkloristica 7.) Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 3–28. SIIKALA, Anna-Leena 1986 Variation in the Incantation and Mythical Thinking: The Scope of Comparative Research. Journal of Folklore Research23(2–3): 187–204. VIRTANEN, Leea 1993 Is There the Comparative Method Out of Date? In Michael Chesnutt (ed.): Telling Reality. Folklore Studies in Memory of Bengt Holbek. Copenhagen & Turku: Department of Folklore, University of Copenhagen, 255–27.
- Recommended bibliography
- WOLF-KNUTS, Ulrika 2000 On the History of Comparison in Folklore Studies. In Honko, Lauri (ed.): Thick Corpus, Organic Variation and Textuality in Oral Tradition. (Studia Fennica Folkloristica 7.) Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 254–283. ROSENBERG, Bruce A.–SMITH, John B. 1974 The Computer and the Finnish Historical-Geographical Method. The Journal of American Folklore87 (344): 149–154.https://doi.org/10.2307/539475(utolsó megtekintés: 2019. 06. 18.).